Q.C.

The appellant waste contractor alleged that the respondent municipal district breached a contractual duty of good faith by reallocating waste from a more distant disposal facility to a closer one, thereby preventing the appellant from achieving its target operating profit ratio for 2011.

The majority held that the duty to exercise contractual discretion in good faith requires exercise of discretion in a manner connected to the purposes for which the discretion was granted, and that exercising it unreasonably — meaning in a manner unconnected to those purposes — constitutes a breach.

The majority found that the respondent's reallocation was guided by legitimate objectives of maximizing efficiency and minimizing costs, and was therefore not unreasonable.

The concurring minority agreed the appeal should be dismissed, emphasizing that the standard of review was correctness given the statutory right of appeal, and that good faith cannot be used to create unbargained-for obligations.

The appeal was unanimously dismissed with costs.

In a bifurcated family law and estate proceeding, both the applicant and the respondent estate brought motions to compel answers to questions refused or taken under advisement during questioning.

The central issue for the first phase of the trial was the validity and enforceability of a 1986 marriage contract.

The court ordered the applicant to produce documents relating to her prior divorce and records from her physician and counsellor, finding them relevant to her understanding of domestic contracts.

The court dismissed the applicant's motion to compel the estate trustee to answer questions regarding the deceased's subsequent estate planning and relationships with lawyers, finding them irrelevant to the 1986 contract or overly broad.

The Crown appealed a Court of Appeal decision that had set aside a jury's convictions of the respondent for indecent assault and gross indecency on the ground that the verdict was unreasonable.

The sole issue was whether inconsistencies in the complainant's testimony — as between his police statement, preliminary inquiry evidence, and trial evidence — were so significant that a conviction based on his evidence was unreasonable as a matter of law.

The majority held that the inconsistencies, while troubling, did not render the jury's verdict unreasonable, as the complainant offered an explanation (that counselling had improved his memory) and the jury was entitled to accept it after thorough cross-examination and a comprehensive, unchallenged jury charge.

The majority further held that the Crown was not required to adduce further evidence or expert evidence regarding the role of counselling in refining memory.

The convictions were restored; Brown and Rowe JJ. dissented, substantially for the reasons of Justice White below.

The appellant was convicted at trial of trafficking in cocaine and possession of proceeds of crime based primarily on identification evidence from an undercover buy officer and a surveillance officer.

The Alberta Court of Appeal majority affirmed the conviction, while a dissenting judge would have ordered a new trial on the basis that the trial judge should have conducted a voir dire on the admissibility of the identification evidence and reviewed the video and photo herself.

The Supreme Court of Canada majority dismissed the appeal substantially for the reasons of the Court of Appeal majority, adding that the combination of the buy officer's evidence, the surveillance officer's evidence, and defence counsel's concession regarding the person arrested provided sufficient admissible evidence to support the conviction.

One judge dissented and would have allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.

The plaintiff sought to certify a class proceeding against the City of Ottawa arising from a deadly bus accident at Westboro Station.

The proposed action was structured to plead systemic negligence in transit design and operation while avoiding claims against the city as the owner of the vehicle and employer of the driver.

The court dismissed the certification motion, finding that the proposed class proceeding was not the preferable procedure, as it ignored readily available compensation under the motor vehicle insurance regime and numerous individual actions had already been commenced.

The applicant sought an extension of time to file her electoral campaign return under the Canada Elections Act.

The initial delay was caused by a family illness and the pandemic, and a subsequent attempt to file was thwarted by a technical error on the website, resulting in the return being one day late.

The respondent did not oppose the application.

The court found the failure to file was due to inadvertence and not deliberate or a lack of due diligence, and granted the extension.

The applicant sought an order extending the time to file her general election return under the Canada Elections Act.

The initial delay was caused by a family illness and the pandemic, and a subsequent attempt to file within an extended deadline failed due to a technical error on the website, resulting in the return being one day late.

The respondent did not oppose the application.

The court found the failure to file was due to inadvertence and not a lack of due diligence, and granted the extension.

The appellant Crown appealed a Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision that had set aside a conviction for sexual assault on the basis that the trial judge applied uneven scrutiny to the credibility of the accused compared to the complainant.

The Supreme Court declined to decide whether uneven scrutiny constitutes an independent ground of appeal or a separate and distinct error of law.

The Court found no error in the trial judge's credibility assessment that would have warranted intervention on appeal.

The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted to the Court of Appeal to address the remaining grounds of appeal not considered by the majority below.

The appellant Crown appealed a Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision that had set aside a conviction for sexual assault on the basis that the trial judge applied uneven scrutiny to the credibility of the accused compared to the complainant.

The Supreme Court declined to decide whether uneven scrutiny constitutes an independent ground of appeal or a separate and distinct error of law.

The Court found no error in the trial judge's credibility assessment that would have warranted intervention on appeal.

The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted to the Court of Appeal to address the remaining grounds of appeal not considered by the majority below.

The defendant insurers brought a motion for further and better affidavits of documents from the plaintiff insureds in a coverage dispute under a builders' risk insurance policy.

The dispute arose from a 15-month delay in completing a light rail transit project, which the plaintiffs attributed to a sinkhole event.

The defendants sought production of subcontractor change orders, native schedules, and delay-related correspondence to explore other potential causes of the delay.

The court dismissed the request for change orders and schedules as premature and insufficiently substantiated, but granted the request for certain delay-related correspondence to assist in identifying other subcontractors who may have caused delays.

A class representative of Mr. Sub franchisees appealed the Court of Appeal's dismissal of their negligence claim against an exclusive meat supplier following a 2008 listeria recall that caused significant economic losses.

The majority held that the supplier owed no duty of care to the franchisees in respect of pure economic losses because the parties lacked the proximity required under the Anns/Cooper framework.

The majority found that neither the negligent misrepresentation nor the negligent supply of shoddy goods categories of pure economic loss applied, and that the multipartite contractual matrix — under which the franchisees could have sought alternative supply sources — precluded a finding of proximity.

The dissent would have recognized a novel duty of care arising from the close and direct relationship between the exclusive supplier and the franchisees who were contractually bound to purchase exclusively from it.

The appeal was dismissed five-to-four, with costs.

The Crown appealed a Court of Appeal decision setting aside a sexual assault conviction and ordering a new trial.

The majority of the Supreme Court held that the trial judge's reasons, read in context, clearly established beyond a reasonable doubt that the complainant did not subjectively consent to any sexual activity with the respondent.

The Court found that the circumstantial evidence — including the complainant's emotional state, her attempts to leave, and her reaction upon recovering from memory blackouts — reasonably permitted only one inference: absence of consent.

The majority agreed with the dissenting judge at the Court of Appeal and restored the conviction.

The sentence appeal was remanded back to the Court of Appeal.

The appellant Crown appealed a decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal which had set aside the respondent's sexual assault conviction and ordered a new trial.

The Court of Appeal majority had found the trial judge erred by using text messages exchanged between the complainant and the accused as prior consistent statements to corroborate the complainant's evidence, by failing to hold a voir dire to determine their relevance, and in the approach to the W.(D.) analysis.

The Supreme Court, by majority, allowed the appeal and restored the conviction, adopting the reasons of the dissenting judge in the Court of Appeal.

Justices Côté and Brown dissented and would have dismissed the appeal substantially for the reasons of the Court of Appeal majority.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm following a jury trial in which the Crown called a former co-accused as a witness.

The trial judge issued a Vetrovec warning cautioning the jury about the witness's credibility, despite the witness giving exculpatory testimony.

The majority of the Court of Appeal found that the Vetrovec warning was given in error but applied the curative proviso, holding the error harmless.

The dissenting judge found application of the curative proviso inappropriate.

The Supreme Court unanimously allowed the appeal, adopting the reasoning of the dissenting judge, and ordered a new trial.

The defendant in a defamation action sought leave to amend her statement of defence to add particulars of justification regarding the plaintiffs' alleged negligence in representing claimants.

The plaintiffs opposed the motion, arguing delay, prejudice, and abuse of process.

The court denied the substantive amendments, finding that the defendant had known the facts prior to an earlier discovery motion but withheld them to improperly gain broad documentary discovery.

The court held that allowing the amendments now would condone a questionable litigation tactic and constitute an abuse of process.

The defendants brought a motion for a mandatory interim injunction to enforce indemnity agreements and require the plaintiffs to advance funding for their legal expenses.

The court found that the Cytrynbaum jurisprudence did not apply because the motion sought a mandatory injunction against an individual and a corporation, rather than a final determination under the CBCA.

The court dismissed the motion, holding that the defendants failed to establish a strong prima facie case due to concerns about conflicts of interest and lack of independent legal advice in the drafting of the indemnity agreements.

The court also found no irreparable harm, as any harm could be quantified in monetary terms.

The appellant was constructively dismissed after approximately 14 years of employment during which the respondent's management systematically marginalized him.

The central issue was whether damages for breach of the implied term to provide reasonable notice encompassed a long term incentive plan payment that was triggered by the sale of the employer approximately 13 months after the appellant's departure.

The Court held that courts must apply a two-step analysis: first, whether but for the termination the employee would have been entitled to the bonus during the reasonable notice period; and second, whether the terms of the employment contract or bonus plan unambiguously limit or remove that common law right.

Applying this framework, the Court found that the Realization Event occurred within the reasonable notice period and that the LTIP's contractual terms did not unambiguously extinguish the appellant's common law entitlement to damages.

The Court further clarified that a breach of the duty of good faith in the manner of dismissal is a distinct contractual breach from the failure to provide reasonable notice and carries its own analytical framework.

The appellant general contractor sought to enforce a subcontract clause that imposed a ten-percent forfeiture of the subcontract price upon the respondent subcontractor's bankruptcy.

The majority held that the anti-deprivation rule, a longstanding principle of Canadian common law, renders void any contractual provision that is triggered by insolvency and removes value from the insolvent's estate that would otherwise have been available to creditors.

Applying an effects-based test, the majority found that clause VII Q(d) constituted a direct violation of the anti-deprivation rule and could not be rescued by the law of set-off.

Côté J. dissented, concluding that the anti-deprivation rule should incorporate a bona fide commercial purpose element derived from its common law origins, and that the clause at issue served such a purpose.

Following the dismissal of the plaintiffs' proposed class action on summary judgment, the successful defendant sought costs of $68,369.13 on a partial indemnity basis.

The plaintiffs argued for no costs or a reduced amount, citing the novelty of the issue and the defendant's reliance on an exculpatory clause.

The court rejected the 'no costs' argument but reduced the award to $52,500, noting the novelty of the issues and the defendant's opposition to a pleadings amendment.

The appellant provincial government appealed from a declaration that the Attorney General's confidential Cabinet report to the Lieutenant Governor in Council must form part of the record on judicial review of the government's response to a judicial compensation commission's recommendations.

Applying the framework developed in the companion appeal, the Court held that the party seeking production of a confidential Cabinet document must first establish some basis to believe the document may contain evidence tending to show the government failed to meet a Bodner requirement.

Upon inspection, only two components of the report — the discussion of government-wide implications and the communications plan — provided such evidence, as they referenced labour relations considerations and political communications concerns that may not constitute legitimate bases for departing from the commission's recommendations.

The Court further held that the public interest in disclosure of those two components outweighed the public interest in their continued confidentiality, given their importance to the reviewing court's ability to assess the merits of the Bodner review.

The appeal was allowed in part to narrow the scope of the required production accordingly.